


Dream

by Nyssa



Category: Monty Python RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 13:50:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa/pseuds/Nyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael helps Eric make it through the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Eric's account of his Dickensian childhood in _The Pythons Autobiography_. Poor baby says he still has nightmares about the school he went to. Naturally, this was too good for an angst-loving writer to pass up.

In the early, early morning, just before the first hint of grey lightened the blackness, he dreamed.

 

*****

 

 _The corridor was long and bare, devoid of any distinguishing features. He could recognise nothing in it, yet he knew it better than he knew his own childhood home. He'd walked that corridor more often by far than he'd walked the pathway to his mother's front door._

 _No one was there. He looked through the glass of a door, the door of a classroom, and saw rows of empty desks, an empty coat rack, a blank blackboard. The next room was the same, and the next. He tried the doors, rattling the knobs ineffectually. Locked, all of them. He was alone._

 _It was cold, of course, and he buried his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders under the thin suit coat he wore. He looked down at it and saw that it was far too big for him. He was a child, and the coat had been made for a man. He couldn't understand why he was wearing it. His tie dangled loosely, untidily, from his neck, its knot resting at the midpoint of his chest._

 _He stood, watching his breath rise in white puffs before his face, and a slow, nameless dread clutched him. All the doors were locked, all the rooms empty, but he had to go to class. They'd punish him if he didn't turn up. They'd beat him. Perhaps they'd locked him out so they'd have an excuse to do it._

 _Panicked now, he turned and ran back up the corridor. It lengthened as he went, stretching out before him so that he couldn't seem to get anywhere. He didn't know where he was trying to get anyway. Away, somewhere, where it was warm and no one would beat him._

 _He felt something crunch under his feet, and looked down to see snow piling up around him. It was thick, unbelievably thick, too thick to run through. It rose higher, higher, creeping up the walls till it covered the portrait of the king, covered the school's coat of arms, covered the big double doors far, far down at the end of the corridor. He struggled frantically against it, but it might as well have been quicksand. He tried to cry for help, but no sound came from his throat, and he knew in his heart that no one would have come anyway. The snow fell, and fell. It crept silently up his body, and it was cold, so very, very cold. It covered his arms and stilled their desperate flailing. It was burying him, he knew it. It moved up to his chin, to his mouth, to his nose, and he felt hot, stinging tears roll down to meet it, and he welcomed them because they were the only warmth he could feel._

 

*****

 

He woke gasping, lungs pumping, face streaked wet, and lay rigid, staring up at the ceiling he could barely make out through the gloom. Then he closed his eyes again and repeated the facts silently to himself. The snow was outside, not inside, and it was warm inside, not cold. He was in his bedroom, not at the Ophney. He wasn't alone. He turned his head on the pillow and saw a new sight, a sight he wasn't yet accustomed to, but a very agreeable one. Michael was sleeping beside him. As he watched, Michael's lips twitched; his eyelashes fluttered. Perhaps Michael was dreaming, too.

He was still trembling. His heart still pounded. He was still terrified, even though he knew he had no reason to be.

He wanted, more than anything at the moment, to feel Michael's arms around him. But he knew of no way to ask for such a thing without sounding pathetic.

He wiped his cheeks impatiently, propped himself up on one arm, and reached for Michael with the other. "Mike," he whispered, and shook him gently by the shoulder. "Michael."

Michael sighed and burrowed further into his pillow.

"Mike, wake up." He almost added "I need you" but stopped himself in time.

Michael's eyes opened slowly. "What?" he murmured. "What time is -- "

"Rub my back." He knew the words sounded like a command, not a request, but he was too shaken to care.

Michael blinked at him, once, twice, and then without a word drew him into a close embrace, his right arm round Eric's shoulders, his left hand stroking in slow circles over Eric's back.

Eric sighed with gratitude. The cold that still lingered inside him began its slow retreat.

He could feel Michael's questions, but he didn't explain. He said simply, "Cold."

Michael didn't reply for a moment. His hand moved steadily. Then he said in mild tones, "You don't feel cold. You're covered with sweat."

Eric said nothing.

Michael continued to stroke him. Finally he asked softly, "Does this happen to you often?"

Eric felt himself tense. "No. I get cold sometimes, at night. Bloody heat won't work properly. I'll have it seen to, I'll phone the Gas Board, they'll sort it out."

Michael said, "I'm not cold at all."

Eric pulled away from him and rolled onto his back. "Good on you," he said tightly, and closed his eyes deliberately.

"I have bad dreams sometimes," Michael said after a moment.

Eric blinked. What sort of bad dreams could someone like Michael possibly have? What could he know about it?

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "But it's bloody early, so if you don't mind..." He turned over until he was lying on his side with his back to Michael.

Michael continued as though he hadn't spoken. "If we carry on with this, you'll see, sooner or later. I wake up shaking, teeth chattering, even shouting sometimes." He laughed. "Dreadful, really. No fun for the lucky party I'm sleeping with, I can tell you."

Eric stared into the darkness. After a long interval he asked, "What do you do about it?"

Michael touched his arm. "Talk about it." His voice was very soft. "Tell somebody what you dreamt about. The next time you dream it, it won't be as bad."

Eric shook his head slowly. "I can't do that. It's..." He shivered, and pulled the blankets tighter around himself. "I can't."

Michael pressed closer, curling comfortably around him. "Is it always the same?"

Eric gave a slight nod. "Always."

"Mine aren't," Michael said. Eric felt him sigh, felt the warm puff of air ruffle the hair at the back of his head. "I have several. They change, switch about. Never a dull moment."

"Why?" Eric asked, with real curiosity. He turned to face Michael. "Why do you suppose you have them?"

Michael looked surprised. He shrugged. "Lots of people have nightmares. Why does anybody have them?"

"But you're..." Eric trailed off. What could he say? You're so normal? You didn't have the sort of shitty childhood that I had? You've never had an unhappy moment in your life? He knew that was a load of bollocks. He felt his face flush, and was grateful for the darkness. Michael was good-natured, sweet-tempered, cheerful, and altogether as easy a person to get on with as one could ever hope to meet, but he wasn't shallow.

"I'm what?" Michael asked.

Eric looked away. "Nothing."

They lay silent for a while. Eric closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the dream still clung to the edges of his consciousness. He couldn't forget it, and he couldn't shake the lurking dread that it would come back if he did sleep.

He sighed and shifted restlessly on the mattress, and as he settled finally on his right side he felt Michael's lips touch his shoulder. He didn't react. A hand found his hip and caressed it gently, before sliding down to his inner thigh. Michael's mouth moved to the nape of his neck, and covered it with soft, slow kisses.

Eric tensed under the tender assault. He was feeling anything but passionate. But perhaps it would help. Perhaps the distraction of mindless pleasure was what he needed.

Michael's lips left his neck and rested briefly at his ear. "All right?" he whispered.

Eric nodded, and tried to force the tightness from his body.

Michael tugged him gently onto his back and straddled him, pushing the blankets out of the way. He smiled a reassuring smile before lowering himself to place a gentle kiss on Eric's navel.

Eric closed his eyes and waited, and then the warm mouth was sliding over him, taking him in with one motion. Not too difficult, he thought wryly, since he was maddeningly, infuriatingly soft. He sighed, pushed the dream into a far corner of his mind, and concentrated fiercely on his cock.

Michael's mouth was lovely, it really was. He knew Michael had no previous experience with men, any more than Eric did himself. But he was eager and determined and naturally talented. He'd had Eric writhing in ecstasy in no time at all the one other time they'd done this.

But this time it was no good. He felt Michael licking, tasting, sucking him exactly the way he'd done before, but apart from a feeble twitch or two it was no good. His mind grasped desperately for fantasy material -- naked girls rubbing against him like cats; Anita Ekberg's breasts in his hands; Michael himself moving under him, begging him, pleading for more. Nothing worked. He opened his eyes and gazed despairingly upward while Michael persevered, unwilling, apparently, to recognise defeat even as it stared him in the face.

At last Michael raised his head. Eric didn't look at him, but he could well imagine the wordless inquiry in his eyes. He shook his head, face averted, and Michael abandoned his efforts and crawled silently up to lie beside him.

It was a few minutes before either of them spoke. Then Eric laughed, painfully. "I must be making a fabulous impression on you, eh?"

"Sorry," Michael said. "I wish I could -- "

" 'S not you," Eric snapped, more sharply than he intended. "It's my fucking brain." A long, exhausted sigh escaped him. Jesus, what an awful night. What a fucking disastrous night.

"Here," Michael said softly. "Come here."

Eric hesitated, then slowly turned over and moved into Michael's outstretched arms. "Here," Michael said again, and, awkwardly, self-consciously, Eric laid his head on Michael's shoulder.

Michael stroked his hair. "I quite like it," he said. "Learning new things about you, I mean. I thought I knew you very well, but the way we are now -- it's like starting over. Getting to know you all over again." He paused, and laughed. "Sounds a bit soppy, I suppose."

Eric managed a tiny smile. It did sound a bit soppy. But he didn't mind.

"What about the things I don't want you to know?" He raised his head and looked into Michael's eyes. "What about those?"

Michael shrugged. "Too late now, isn't it?" he said, and grinned.

Eric sighed in resignation and laid his head back down against Michael. "I suppose it is," he said, but it wasn't too late for everything. There were things he wasn't ready to let anyone know, not even Michael. You had to keep _some_ secrets, even from the people who meant the most to you. Even from the people who warmed you when you were cold.

He listened to Michael's heartbeat. It was slow and steady. It didn't race or skip. If he could match that rhythm, he thought, he could sleep peacefully.

Michael's fingers trailed slowly over the back of his neck. "Don't know about you," he whispered, "but I could use a bit more sleep."

Eric took stock of himself. "Yeah," he said. "Me, too." He pulled the blankets up and shifted a bit, turning in Michael's embrace until his back was pressed comfortably to Michael's warm chest. He felt Michael yawn, and, like an automatic reflex, he was yawning too.

He closed his eyes, then opened them again as a thought struck him. "Mike?" he whispered.

Michael responded with an indistinct hum against his shoulder.

"Wake me if you feel me moving about, or if you hear me -- well, making any sort of noise or anything." He hesitated, then added, "Promise me."

He felt Michael nod. "I will," he said. "If you'll do the same for me."

Eric smiled in the darkness. "All right." He waited a moment, uncertain, and then took Michael's hand and squeezed it gently. "Just tonight, do you mean?"

Michael sighed contentedly and squeezed back. "Every night," he murmured. "Every night."


End file.
